Towns

Warren House

A late 18th-century home has been on the move in Edgartown. The historic Warren House, which usually fronts North Water street beside the Edgartown library, has been temporarily relocated as part of a major restoration effort.

Changes have been approved to an agreement between the town and the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative Inc. (CVEC) to create solar arrays on town-owned parcels of land. The projects are expected to save the town millions in electricity costs down the road.

Is it really the Warren House? I see in the Gazette that the Warren House is back in the news. I have to smile. The house had a sign on it, “The Captain Warren House” for as many years as I have been coming to the Vineyard.

Edgartown selectmen Monday rejected a bid to buy the Warren House, a rundown town-owned former captain’s house on North Water street.

After a discussion in executive session with town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport, the selectmen said the bid by a group including Edgartown businesswoman Maggie White was too low. The board voted to put the house advertisement back in the central registry with a minimum bid of $2.3 million.

And the house at 62 North Water street may bear his name (along with the disingenuous title of captain), but the history of the building is not about Captain Warren. The once-stately home dates to the late 18th century and was the home of the Osborns, an old Edgartown family that traced its roots to the whaling era. Caroline Osborn Warren, Mr. Warren’s wife, inherited the house, and was a benefactor of the Edgartown Public Library next door.

The Edgartown Library building committee hit yet another bump in the road this week when the town historic district commission said it will not allow the Warren House to be torn down.

The building committee’s latest plan calls for razing the historic colonial-era house and replacing it with a parking lot for the expanded and renovated library at the Carnegie building on North Water street

But after meeting on Tuesday with the historic district commission, that plan, like others before it, now must be scrapped.

This time with a quorum, Edgartown voters at a special town meeting Tuesday night agreed to allocate money for an appraisal of the Capt. Warren House and approved the conversion of silos at Katama Farm into cell towers.

A total of 168 voters attended the special session. The meeting was rescheduled from last week after falling 20 voters shy of a quorum. Moderator Philip J. Norton Jr. presided over the 15-article warrant.